What everybody forgets is that airlines are not there for the paying pax or even shareholders, they are there for the airline employees to move about and have cheap flights for themselves family/friends. Silly to think the paying pax would have any rights or expectation of receiving the goods (flight and travel) just because they paid for it. As for overbooking it's a bet made by airlines that not all pax will show. Given how fares are paid these days, ie mostly non-refundable, certainly not refunded in cash, then any no-shows are cream for seats which can be oversold or used by stand-by. The fact in this instance the airline lost the bet just didn't seem to dawn on the officers of the company who perpetrated this PR disaster. But in the US, when in doubt, call in the heat!

Is there any commercial benefit for having another brand? BA tried it before and failed. As for Veiling my only experience of that shambles is that it is never late; well, according to Veiling anyway. One night in Lisbon the airline changed the gate three times (keeping it a secret from the pax by just letting it be known as whispers rather than courageous customer oriented and focussed announcements) but each time the gate changed the departure time remained as 2030 despite us finally boarding at 2330. It was obvious this was nothing new to Veiling as the FAs were very adept at handing out pre-printed discount vouchers for future flights. As if that was ever going to happen! If the various JetStar (as bad as it is) clones can run both domestic and international versions and destinations surely Veiling could?